Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Photo Gallery: Muslim Ban 2.0 Prompts Lindbergh Field Protest

The call to protest went out mid-day, not long after the Trump administration rolled out their Muslim Ban 2.0. On Twitter, on Facebook, and on the Indivisible network, encompassing dozens of groups throughout the county.

Those that could do so came to make a statement. Those that couldn’t, amplified the message via social media.

It still reads like a ban It still feels like a ban. And it’s still an affront to human decency. Travel restrictions aside, the United States of American is slamming the door on refugees. After the 120-day suspension ends, a mere 12,500 humans fleeing war, oppression, and famine will be allowed to enter the country for the remainder of the year.

Make no mistake about it. This ban and the attitude that goes with it are about fear of the ‘other;’ people of color and non-Christians. It’s all about ‘Make America White Again.’

Between 2011 and 2015, San Diego County took in 8,621 Iraqi refugees, according to data from the California Refugee Programs Bureau. That’s about 71 percent of all refugees the county took in during that time frame.

Wedad Schlotte, an Iraqi woman who came to the United States in 1980 to study at San Diego State University, said she considered the new order to be a Muslim ban, despite the changes from the original executive order.

“This ban, it will instigate further discrimination and a sense of superiority,” said Schlotte, an electronics engineer for the Department of Defense. “It will empower those people who have a bias of racism. It will give it power. It’s feeding it. We see it happening.”

The Trump administration wants to gut the Coast Guard and make deep cuts in airport and rail security to help pay for its crackdown on illegal immigration, according to internal budget documents reviewed by POLITICO — a move that lawmakers and security experts say defies logic if the White House is serious about defending against terrorism and keeping out undocumented foreigners…

…Overall, DHS would get a 6 percent boost to its budget, to $43.8 billion. But to help pay for that, the administration would slice the budget of the Coast Guard and cut 11 percent in spending from the TSA — reductions that critics say would weaken safeguards against threats arriving by sea or air.

OMB also wants to cut 11 percent from the budget of FEMA, which oversees the national response to disasters such as floods and hurricanes.

Photo by Doug Porter

From an op-ed in the New York Times by Farhana Khera and Johnathan Smith:

President Trump’s executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries experienced nearly universal defeat in the federal courts. On Monday, he issued a revised version of that order, but it still suffers from a fundamental, and fatal, flaw: It constitutes unlawful religious discrimination…

…anti-Muslim bias and bigotry that characterized the original travel ban remain in this revised version. The order is still limited to only Muslim-majority countries: namely, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Residents of those countries — and only those countries — will be severely restricted in their ability to travel into the United States for 90 days. Left off are the predominately Christian countries that the State Department lists as “Terrorist Safe Havens” like Colombia, the Philippines and Venezuela…

…The Trump administration argues that the ban protects the country. Yet by excluding Iraq from the order, Mr. Trump has cleared travel from one of the two countries from which Islamic State terrorists operates. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security concluded last month that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.” Former national security officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear that the January order does not make our country safer. Instead, the bigotry that Mr. Trump spews at news conferences and on Twitter have been a boon for terrorists’ recruitment efforts.

“The Trump administration has conceded that its original Muslim ban was indefensible. Unfortunately, it has replaced it with a scaled-back version that shares the same fatal flaws. The only way to actually fix the Muslim ban is not to have a Muslim ban. Instead, President Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts and the people.”

Looking for some action?Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org Check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He's won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

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The Safety Pin

Many Resistance Groups have stood up against the horrible events in Charlottesville and have reacted against the unacceptable response of our President. It is now our turn in North San Diego County to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in resistance to protest the white supremacist movement.